I haven't played vampires myself, so I can't help much with the creatures, but most seem OK here. I'm a fan of Legion's Landing, because that is a creature and essentially ramp for 1 mana, also it's a vampire.
However, I'd cut almost all of the instants and sorceries you play. Keep Crackling Doom, Fatal Push, Go for the Throat, Lightning Bolt, Swords to Plowshares, Teferi's Protection and Terminate. Cut the rest. They are either too expensive for what they do or they are plain inefficient in multiplayer like 1 for 1 discard or targeted land destruction. Spells I would add are Abrade, a super versatile and efficient removal spell. Wear//Tear, Toxic Deluge, Fire Covenant, Blasphemous Act, Jeska's Will, maybe New Blood and Boros Charm. Vandalblast is another great card for red. And if you like the Fireball effects (which are generally too weak in EDH usually), I can recommend Shatterskull Smashing. This is a Fireball which doesn't take up a spell slot because you usually play it as the land, which makes it a great card. Cathars' Crusade is a great finisher if you're playing Edgar. Gets out of hand really fast.
You should also work on your land base, remove the taplands and replace them with lands which enter untapped. It makes a huge difference, taplands essentially set your back a turn.
I'm not sure how good your want your deck to be, but since you're playing powerful cards like Necropotence, you're probably shooting for a high power level (7-8)?
If that's the case, I'd ditch Torment of Hailfire and Exsanguinate and focus on more efficient wincons Sultai has like Oracle Consulatation (Thassa's Oracle which you're already playing plus either Tainted Pact or Demonic Consultation) or a Protean Hulk combo line. Of the two, Oracle Consultation needs less slots and is faster, but Hulk has more options of getting there.
Since you're already playing Narset, Windfall could make sense here.
Your land base also needs some work. I'd cut all the taplands except the Triome (which you can search for because it has basic land types). Add fetchlands if you can afford them, they will make the deck a lot better. Otherwise, add other fixing lands which enter untapped, it makes a huge difference.
Necrotic Ooze does a lot of work in my Sidisi list. It can also be part of a game winning Protean Hulk pile. Seeker of Skybreak is another infinite combo with Mesmeric Orb and can be found with Green Sun's Zenith
Also Dread Return is absolutely amazing in Sidisi decks.
Polukranos seems like a super fun commander, however the mana curve of your deck is way, way, WAY too high. You can basically hardly play anything for the first 3 turns and even after that you'll rarely be able to cast more than one spell each turn - and when that gets countered or removed, your entire turn was wasted. Most of the time you'll just sit there with a hand of expensive spells which you can't cast because you don't have enough mana.
You should add a lot more 1- and 2-drops while dropping at least half of the cmc 6+ cards of your deck. You'll notice that your deck runs a lot smoother with a lower curve - you can just play more Magic. This also means you can get rid of cards like City of Solitude, which don't advance your game plan, because countermagic won't hit you as hard any more - if you want protection against that, I'd go with Cavern of Souls and Boseiju, Who Shelters All. I'd also cut cards like Ashnod's Altar or Riftsweeper which don't contribute to your gameplan at all.
And especially your removal is too costly and most often sorcery speed. Take out Krosan Grip, Fade into Antiquity, Bramblecrush and Scour from Existance and replace them with Nature's Claim, Kenrith's Transformation, Song of the Dryads and the like. Reclamation Sage is also a good idea if you play tutors (which you currently don't, but totally should).
By competitive, do you mean cEDH or just the best version this deck can be? Because I doubt that Saproling of Colfenor is a powerful enough commander to be cEDH viable, not even fringe tier really. However there is still a lot you could improve and you could probably turn the deck into about an 8 power level. Currently I'd say it's 6-7 maybe. You're playing a lot of expensive cards like Gaea's Cradle, but without a consistent gameplan while also playing a lot of high cmc cards with very little board impact and a slow finishing combo without many means to find it.
Cards like Archfiend of Despair, Foe-Razer Regent, Decimator of the Provinces, Sifter Wrum, Kokusho or Stonehoof Chieftain are basically useless in higher powered metas because they are too slow. High cmc and virtually no impact on the game. For 8+ mana, you want to straight up win the game, nothing less. A card like Stonehoof Chieftain wouldn't be playable at higher power levels if it cost 4 mana.
So I'd certainly cut these and additionaly also Tree of Perdition, Seedborn Muse (you have no real way to abuse her), Mul Daya Channelers, Noxious Gearhulk, Nyxbloom Ancient, Azusa (no synergy with the rest of the deck, will most often be useless), All Hallow's Eve, Overwhelming Forces, Farseek, Rampant Growth, Summer Bloom, Burgeoning, Heartbeat of Spring (under no circumstances would you ever want to play a group hug card in a higher powered meta), Liliana, Well of Lost Dreams, Vedalken Orrery, Sudden Spoiling, Moldervine Reclamation, Cabal Coffers (way too slow).
You should also cut down on lands, 36 is certainly too much for a higher powered deck. 32 - 33 is plenty. In higher powered EDH decks, your main goal is to bring down your mana curve, so you can play multiple impactful spells per turn. Most cEDH decks have an average cmc of around or below 2, so if you want to build the best possible version of your deck, this is where you want to go.
I'd also actually cut all of the Exquisite Blood combo . It's too slow and too predictable. There are better finisher options in b/g, more on that later.
You're in b/g, so you can play the best creature ever printed: Deathrite Shaman. Additionally, you want to play all the good 1 cmc mana dorks: Llanowar Elves, Fyndhorn Elves, Elvish Mystic, Birds of Paradise, Arbor Elf, in addition to the Elves of the Deep Shadow you're already playing. Also add Wild Growth and Utopia Sprawl. Nature's Lore replaces Rampant Growth because it finds nonbasics and most importantly brings them untapped. You also want to play all green and all black fetchlands, as well as Prismatic Vista. If you have the budget, Mana Crypt and Bayou would be great. That should improve your mana base a lot.
Survival of the Fittest seems like a natural inclusion, as well as reanimation cards like Animate Dead, Necromancy, Reanimate, Apprentice Necromancer, Life/Death. Green Sun's Zenith is another staple.
For a finisher, I'd go with a Protean Hulk combo, for example Melira + Lesser Masticore + Disciple of the Vault + sac outlet like Viscera Seer. Protean Hulk is certainly the way to go if you want to be as competitive as possible in b/g.
Use Pattern of Rebirth and Natural Order to cheat him into play. Razaketh is another option for a repeatable tutor. Diabolic Intent is great for your deck. Some Birthing Pod lines would probably be strong.
In higher powered metas, you also want some interaction and stax pieces. You can safely play Null Rod and Collector Oophe and Manglehorn. You also want at least Dismember, Nature's Claim and Veil of Summer.
I would definitely include Taurean Mauler, it's one of the best changelings and even has horns for flavor in your deck.
Another card I would consider is Fire Covenant, getting rid of a large number of utility creatures, mana dorks and blockers for 3 mana seems amazing.
I don't think adding several hundred (!) cards to the banlist will make the format any healthier. Tbh, I don't have a problem with the format as it currently is. Just communicate with the rest of your group which power level you're playing at. From pauper commander and budget decks for 50€ to cEDH I play anything and all is a lot of fun.
Also it seems weird to me that you want to ban relatively innocent mechanics like infect (I've never understood the hate against infect. It's easy to kill one player with infect, but then the rest of the table will focus you down soon enough, it's not particularly powerful at all) and a lot of cards which aren't particularly powerful or easy to abuse like Grindstone (the 2 card combo can only kill a single player), Steelshaper's Gift (??), Lotus Petal, Enchanted Evening, Gaddock Teeg, Beacon of Tomorrows (not that easy to abuse at all since it shuffles back into your library) while you miss a lot of powerful cards which would be much more banworthy (and I don't think any of them should be banned).
Cards like Stasis, Winter Orb, Urza, Isochron Scepter, Omniscience, Dream Halls, Najeela, Ad Nauseam, The Gitrog Monster, Necropotence, Lion's Eye Diamond, SOL RING (!) and dozens of other cards are all much stronger or more oppressive than most of your proposed banlist.
Adding several hundred cards to a banlist will not make the format healthier. There will always be combo decks and control decks, no matter how many cards you ban. It's part of the nature of the game. Talk with your playgroup about power levels. For online play, it's easy to build multiple decks for all power levels so you can adjust your choice of deck to what your opponents are playing. That's how you make the format healthy: Communication. Not by a banlist of hundreds or thousands of cards.
33 lands and 4 ramp cards seems to be a bit low for your deck, especially since your mana curve is rather high and you have a commander which is basically a form of mana sink.
I'd suggest to considerably lower your mana curve. Cards like the Lurking Predators which Serberus already mentioned just don't do enough for their cost. In addition to lowering the mana curve, I'd add a significant amount of ramp. You're playing green, so Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, Fyndhorn Elves, Elvish Mystic and Wild Growth are pretty much auto includes - especially since you can cast them from your grave. Wayfarer's Bauble might be an option since you can recast it from your grave and you're currently not running many artifacts which you want to recast. But it's rather slow, so I'm on the fence with this one. Other artifact ramp like Arcane Signet and the Talismans are a good idea though. For the land part of the mana base, I'd suggest replacing the lands that enter tapped like Dismal Backwater or Golgari Rot Farm with any land that enters untapped. Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse and Myriad Landscape are exceptions here because of the synergy with your commander. They are playable. Ash Barrens is another budget land with a good synergy for this deck.
One card that I really miss in your list is Shriekmaw. The cheap Evoke ability goes very will with your commander, repeatable cheap removal is amazing.
For cards to cut, I'd suggest some of the high cmc cards which don't really do enough like Noxious Gearhulk, Lurking Predators, Syr Konrad and Jarad. Also cards which don't really contribute to your game plan like Azusa (when can you really make use of her with 33 lands?) or Ramunap Excavator (your commander already enables you to play lands from your grave).
Those changes should make your deck a lot faster and enable Muldrotha to generate more value every turn.
Thanks for the suggestions.
Altar of the Brood is a bit too slow for my taste and also risky against any decks which can abuse their graveyard.
Vitalize is a card that I've got on the radar. I'm currently running To Arms! and Benefactor's Draught because they also draw a card, but running Vitalize as well might be worth it. Those cards do put in a lot of work, especially when there's Cryptolith Rite or something like that on the field... Will think about it.
And for some reason I've never considered running Mycoloth, but it sounds like a good addition. I'll certainly test that.
Yes, Glare of Subdual is amazing here. Tapping down blockers or scary attackers while also producing tokens is just powerful. This card has singlehandedly turned around a lot of games which would otherwise have been lost.
Hi everyone,
here's my current Emmara decklist - a token go wide deck, which can really get out of hand quickly to swarm the board, recover very fast from boardwipes and is tons of fun to play.
The deck is focused around tapping and untapping Emmara. We have 20 ways to tap Emmara without risking her in an attack (2 of these are one-of convoke spells) and 10 ways to untap her (2 of them are one-of instants). There are also plenty of tutors to find them.
The best ramp cards of the deck are the likes of Birchlore Rangers or Jaspera Sentinel which enable very fast starts, producing the first tokens already at turn 2. Nature's Chosen is by far the best card in the deck, enabling Emmara to produce 4 or 5 soldier tokens every round for the investment of just 1 mana.
We also run the most powerful draw spells for a Selesnya token deck so we never run out of gas and can recover quickly after board wipes.
Any comments are appreciated. I'm currently looking two make room for Kabira Takedown and Elvish Scout, but can't really find a place to cut. Which cards would be best to cut here?
Hey everyone,
so I've been brewing this Thrasios Toggo list for the last weeks and while it's maybe not the strongest cEDH deck, it certainly is a lot of fun. Toggo is surprisingly good at establishing board control with his rocks. From mana dorks to small wincon creatures like Hermit Druid to Tymna to even Thassa's Oracle (when there are no other blue cards around), this guy can handle a lot of threats. And throwing rocks is fun!
The deck aims to push the game into the mid / late game, establish a superior board with all the value that Toggo and Thrasios create and then try to turn that into a win. Creature density is quite high to support the rocks. The main wincons are either infinite turns or infinite mana + Thrasios. Before we get to infinite turns, those extra turn spells are of course great to put out extra lands, get more plainswalker activations, throw more rocks, etc
There are a few combos for infinite turns:
1) Mystic Sanctuary + bounce (Trade Routes or Mina and Denn) + any extra turn spell
2) Mystic Sanctuary + sac outlet (Dust Bowl, Elvish Reclaimer or Strip Mine + Extra land drop) + Crucible or Excavator + any extra turn spell
3) Mystic Sanctuary + sac outlet + Wrenn and Six or Life from the Loam + any extra turn spell
4) Walk the Aeons + Crucible or Excavator or Life from the Loam + 2 extra land drops (Azusa or Exploration + Mina and Denn)
5) Walk the Aeons + Crucible or Excavator + 1 extra land drop + Mystic Sanctuary
6) Wrenn and Six emblem + Life from the Loam or Wrenn and Six + any extra turn spell
7) Crucible or Excavator + bounce (Mina and Denn or Trade Routes) + Bala Ged Recovery + any extra turn spell
The infinite mana combos are Basalt Monolith and either Rings of Brighthearth or Kinnan. Rings are also great even without the Basalt Monolith to copy fetchlands, Strip Mine activations, plainswalker abilities or even just rock throws.
Hope you like the deck, any help or comment is appreciated.
With False Dawn, Alena can essentially tap for any colour. So we tap Alena for X mana, where X is Heroes' Bane's power. Normally we could use 4*X mana to get the power of Heroes' Bane from X to 2^X. Now we instead use 2GG to add X +1/+1 counters, then switch Heroes' Bane into Workhorse for 2U. Now we can remove 4 of the +1/+1 counters to double the power with Wine of Blood and Iron.
So essentially with 2 Doubling Seasons out, we can pump Heroes' Bane from X to 2^X for the cost of GGUU. Since tapping Alena adds X mana, would every tap of an Alena add one layer?
Haven't looked through everything, but can help a little with the math.
Having a process that takes 3^x to 3^^x is good, but you need to repeat it about x times to get to 3^^^x, so a lot of the math gets simplified. So by the end of the golem triggers in your example you'd be at 3^^^99 and then it looks like a few more layers for the other activations and kurkesh to get to 3^^^^^99
Thanks! In that case what would happen if the first blue spell is cast and there are 3^^^^^99 scepter untaps and 3^^^^^99 scepter activations for the first untap and so on? Would that add more up arrows?
That was the version with Outnumber if I interpret it correctly?
With Justice Strike the number of tokens should scale better:
If there were 100 creatures and a hydra with power 2^10000, that would be 2^10000*3^100 tokens ( = 2^10150). With 50 Naban and 50 Intruder Alarm, there would be 250 untap triggers for every creature. All creatures get turned into Nyxbloom Ancient and one into Alena. Alena taps for about 3^2^10150 mana. One activation costs approximately just R, because all tokens get turned into Kurkesh to copy the ability so Hydra grows to about 2^3^2^10150. Next Alena grows it to about 2^2^3^2^10150 and so on for each of the 2^10150 tokens, for every untap trigger. That would add another two or three(?) up arrows unless I'm wrong?
And of course it turned out that Master Biomancer, Hamletback Goliath, Hungering Hydra, Gleam of Authority are useless. How big the Hydra is at the beginning is almost irrelevant.
Sorry for the double post... I'm trying to understand how my deck - or any other "most damage deck" - works mathematically and I'm not sure if I got this correct. Tbh I'm a bit confused.
For example with my list, what would happen with the first use of Unbender Tine? Let's assume for simplicity's sake that there are 100 creatures which can be freely transformed into combo pieces by Shapesharer while there's still at least one of every combo piece available as Shapesharer target. And enough mana to do that (that should be easy because Heroes' Bane always grows much faster than the number of creatures, so mana for Shapesharer or Kurkesh isn't limiting) and Scepter has only Outnumber imprinted, nothing else.
Tap Unbender Tine to untap Isochron Scepter. Turn 100 creatures into Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient for 100 untaps. Let the first untap resolve, activate Scepter, copy the activation 100 times, then change every creature into Precursor Golem. Let the first activation resolve, get 100 Golem triggers.
Let the first trigger resolve, get 100 copies of Outnumber (which can all be redirected to Saber Ants). Change 99 creatures into Fiery Emancipation, let the first Outnumber resolve, then with the Saber Ants trigger on the stack, change 100 creatures into Doubling Season. We should then get 100 * 3^99 * 2^100 tokens.
Let the second Outnumber resolve, get 3^(100 * 3^99 * 2^100 -1) * 2^(100 * 3^99 * 2^100) * (100 * 3^99 * 2^100) tokens. This is more than 3^(3^99).
The next Outnumber should then create more than 3^3^3^99 tokens.
In total, we get some more than 3^^99 tokens from the second Golem trigger, is that correct?
And the third Golem trigger would turn that into 3^^^99, the 4th into 3^^^^99 and so forth? Or am I calculating this wrong?
And what would the second activation of Isochron Scepter do? That's where I totally get lost in the maths (if that didn't happen before O.o). And after the 100 activations are done, what would the second untap do when Googols of Googols of Googols of Kurkeshs produce an absolutely enormous number of activations?
In any case, it seems like Outnumber isn't significantly better than Lightning Bolt in the scenario - the damage pretty much only depends on the number of Fiery Emancipations?
The only way to make a difference would be to switch Outnumber for Justice Strike because Heroes' Bane is always much, much more powerful than the number of creatures. That would exclude any lifelink effects, so cut Yarok and Rush of Vitality for Naban, Dean of Iteration and Elspeth, Knight-Errant (emblem for indestructible). Outnumber can be cut since it's actually useless.
The new combo would then be: Unbender Tine -> Isochron Scepter -> Justice Strike on the Heroes' Bane, enchanted with Druid's Call and Gleam of Authority, turn it into Hungering Hydra and everything else into Fiery Emancipation before Justice Strike resolves. Let Strike resolve, turn it into Master Biomancer before Druid's Call trigger resolves. Turn all creatures into Doubling Season. The tokens get their counters and trigger Hamletback Goliath, which grows the creature enchanted with Gleam of Authority again. Turn it into Heroes' Bane again, let the untap trigger from Intruder Alarm resolve. Change everything except Heroe's Bane into Nyxbloom Ancient and one creature into Alena, Kessig Trapper. Tap it, use the mana to grow Heroes' Bane, repeat until every creature is tapped, let the next Justice Strike resolve.
What would happen here?
I haven't played vampires myself, so I can't help much with the creatures, but most seem OK here. I'm a fan of Legion's Landing, because that is a creature and essentially ramp for 1 mana, also it's a vampire.
However, I'd cut almost all of the instants and sorceries you play. Keep Crackling Doom, Fatal Push, Go for the Throat, Lightning Bolt, Swords to Plowshares, Teferi's Protection and Terminate. Cut the rest. They are either too expensive for what they do or they are plain inefficient in multiplayer like 1 for 1 discard or targeted land destruction. Spells I would add are Abrade, a super versatile and efficient removal spell. Wear//Tear, Toxic Deluge, Fire Covenant, Blasphemous Act, Jeska's Will, maybe New Blood and Boros Charm. Vandalblast is another great card for red. And if you like the Fireball effects (which are generally too weak in EDH usually), I can recommend Shatterskull Smashing. This is a Fireball which doesn't take up a spell slot because you usually play it as the land, which makes it a great card.
Cathars' Crusade is a great finisher if you're playing Edgar. Gets out of hand really fast.
You should also work on your land base, remove the taplands and replace them with lands which enter untapped. It makes a huge difference, taplands essentially set your back a turn.
If that's the case, I'd ditch Torment of Hailfire and Exsanguinate and focus on more efficient wincons Sultai has like Oracle Consulatation (Thassa's Oracle which you're already playing plus either Tainted Pact or Demonic Consultation) or a Protean Hulk combo line. Of the two, Oracle Consultation needs less slots and is faster, but Hulk has more options of getting there.
Since you're already playing Narset, Windfall could make sense here.
I'd cut most of the expensive cards which don't do enough like Kozilek, Sphinx of the Final Word, every counter with a cmc of 3 or more (counterspells with cmc > 2 are all unplayable in more optimized decks), Putrefy, Cultivate, Gaze of Granite, ...
Cards you want to add instead are cheaper counters (for example Swan Song and Flusterstorm), cheaper removal (for example Toxic Deluge, Dismember, Rapid Hybridization, ...), cheaper ramp (Three Visits, Utopia Sprawll, Talisman of Curiosity, Talisman of Dominance, ...), tutors (Demonic Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Spellseeker).
Your land base also needs some work. I'd cut all the taplands except the Triome (which you can search for because it has basic land types). Add fetchlands if you can afford them, they will make the deck a lot better. Otherwise, add other fixing lands which enter untapped, it makes a huge difference.
Suppression Field
Seeker of Skybreak is another infinite combo with Mesmeric Orb and can be found with Green Sun's Zenith
Also Dread Return is absolutely amazing in Sidisi decks.
You should add a lot more 1- and 2-drops while dropping at least half of the cmc 6+ cards of your deck. You'll notice that your deck runs a lot smoother with a lower curve - you can just play more Magic. This also means you can get rid of cards like City of Solitude, which don't advance your game plan, because countermagic won't hit you as hard any more - if you want protection against that, I'd go with Cavern of Souls and Boseiju, Who Shelters All. I'd also cut cards like Ashnod's Altar or Riftsweeper which don't contribute to your gameplan at all.
And especially your removal is too costly and most often sorcery speed. Take out Krosan Grip, Fade into Antiquity, Bramblecrush and Scour from Existance and replace them with Nature's Claim, Kenrith's Transformation, Song of the Dryads and the like. Reclamation Sage is also a good idea if you play tutors (which you currently don't, but totally should).
Other low cmc cards which would really help your deck are Crop Rotation (you're playing Cradle, so you absolutely want Crop Rotation), Elvish Reclaimer (search for utility lands, esp Cradle, more landfall triggers), Ulvenwald Tracker (repeatable removal on a stick is always great), Green Sun's Zenith (autoinclude in green, especially since you already run Dryad Arbor), Arbor Elf, Heroic Intervention, Three Visits, Nature's Lore, Worldly Tutor.
Finale of Devastation is another great creature tutor and also a win con later in the game when you have enough mana.
As far as lands go, I'd cut Jungle Basin which is a horrible card (even Guildless Commons would be better here) and Reliquary Tower (you don't have a lot of card draw, so this seems useless), Miren, the Moaning Well and High Market and in their place add War Room, Mouth of Ronom, Scrying Sheets and Snow Covered Forests as well as Strip Mine and Scavenger Grounds. Maybe also Field of the Dead, if you can reliably fulfill the requirement - you could play 1 or 2 non snow forests to search for so you get more different names ore maybe even add Gingerbread Cabin, which you can search for with forest tutors as well.
Another tutor which would work extremely well in here is Natural Order.
Cards like Archfiend of Despair, Foe-Razer Regent, Decimator of the Provinces, Sifter Wrum, Kokusho or Stonehoof Chieftain are basically useless in higher powered metas because they are too slow. High cmc and virtually no impact on the game. For 8+ mana, you want to straight up win the game, nothing less. A card like Stonehoof Chieftain wouldn't be playable at higher power levels if it cost 4 mana.
So I'd certainly cut these and additionaly also Tree of Perdition, Seedborn Muse (you have no real way to abuse her), Mul Daya Channelers, Noxious Gearhulk, Nyxbloom Ancient, Azusa (no synergy with the rest of the deck, will most often be useless), All Hallow's Eve, Overwhelming Forces, Farseek, Rampant Growth, Summer Bloom, Burgeoning, Heartbeat of Spring (under no circumstances would you ever want to play a group hug card in a higher powered meta), Liliana, Well of Lost Dreams, Vedalken Orrery, Sudden Spoiling, Moldervine Reclamation, Cabal Coffers (way too slow).
You should also cut down on lands, 36 is certainly too much for a higher powered deck. 32 - 33 is plenty. In higher powered EDH decks, your main goal is to bring down your mana curve, so you can play multiple impactful spells per turn. Most cEDH decks have an average cmc of around or below 2, so if you want to build the best possible version of your deck, this is where you want to go.
I'd also actually cut all of the Exquisite Blood combo . It's too slow and too predictable. There are better finisher options in b/g, more on that later.
You're in b/g, so you can play the best creature ever printed: Deathrite Shaman. Additionally, you want to play all the good 1 cmc mana dorks: Llanowar Elves, Fyndhorn Elves, Elvish Mystic, Birds of Paradise, Arbor Elf, in addition to the Elves of the Deep Shadow you're already playing. Also add Wild Growth and Utopia Sprawl. Nature's Lore replaces Rampant Growth because it finds nonbasics and most importantly brings them untapped. You also want to play all green and all black fetchlands, as well as Prismatic Vista. If you have the budget, Mana Crypt and Bayou would be great. That should improve your mana base a lot.
Survival of the Fittest seems like a natural inclusion, as well as reanimation cards like Animate Dead, Necromancy, Reanimate, Apprentice Necromancer, Life/Death. Green Sun's Zenith is another staple.
For a finisher, I'd go with a Protean Hulk combo, for example Melira + Lesser Masticore + Disciple of the Vault + sac outlet like Viscera Seer. Protean Hulk is certainly the way to go if you want to be as competitive as possible in b/g.
Use Pattern of Rebirth and Natural Order to cheat him into play. Razaketh is another option for a repeatable tutor. Diabolic Intent is great for your deck. Some Birthing Pod lines would probably be strong.
In higher powered metas, you also want some interaction and stax pieces. You can safely play Null Rod and Collector Oophe and Manglehorn. You also want at least Dismember, Nature's Claim and Veil of Summer.
Another card I would consider is Fire Covenant, getting rid of a large number of utility creatures, mana dorks and blockers for 3 mana seems amazing.
Also it seems weird to me that you want to ban relatively innocent mechanics like infect (I've never understood the hate against infect. It's easy to kill one player with infect, but then the rest of the table will focus you down soon enough, it's not particularly powerful at all) and a lot of cards which aren't particularly powerful or easy to abuse like Grindstone (the 2 card combo can only kill a single player), Steelshaper's Gift (??), Lotus Petal, Enchanted Evening, Gaddock Teeg, Beacon of Tomorrows (not that easy to abuse at all since it shuffles back into your library) while you miss a lot of powerful cards which would be much more banworthy (and I don't think any of them should be banned).
Cards like Stasis, Winter Orb, Urza, Isochron Scepter, Omniscience, Dream Halls, Najeela, Ad Nauseam, The Gitrog Monster, Necropotence, Lion's Eye Diamond, SOL RING (!) and dozens of other cards are all much stronger or more oppressive than most of your proposed banlist.
Adding several hundred cards to a banlist will not make the format healthier. There will always be combo decks and control decks, no matter how many cards you ban. It's part of the nature of the game. Talk with your playgroup about power levels. For online play, it's easy to build multiple decks for all power levels so you can adjust your choice of deck to what your opponents are playing. That's how you make the format healthy: Communication. Not by a banlist of hundreds or thousands of cards.
I'd suggest to considerably lower your mana curve. Cards like the Lurking Predators which Serberus already mentioned just don't do enough for their cost. In addition to lowering the mana curve, I'd add a significant amount of ramp. You're playing green, so Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, Fyndhorn Elves, Elvish Mystic and Wild Growth are pretty much auto includes - especially since you can cast them from your grave. Wayfarer's Bauble might be an option since you can recast it from your grave and you're currently not running many artifacts which you want to recast. But it's rather slow, so I'm on the fence with this one. Other artifact ramp like Arcane Signet and the Talismans are a good idea though. For the land part of the mana base, I'd suggest replacing the lands that enter tapped like Dismal Backwater or Golgari Rot Farm with any land that enters untapped. Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse and Myriad Landscape are exceptions here because of the synergy with your commander. They are playable. Ash Barrens is another budget land with a good synergy for this deck.
One card that I really miss in your list is Shriekmaw. The cheap Evoke ability goes very will with your commander, repeatable cheap removal is amazing.
For cards to cut, I'd suggest some of the high cmc cards which don't really do enough like Noxious Gearhulk, Lurking Predators, Syr Konrad and Jarad. Also cards which don't really contribute to your game plan like Azusa (when can you really make use of her with 33 lands?) or Ramunap Excavator (your commander already enables you to play lands from your grave).
Those changes should make your deck a lot faster and enable Muldrotha to generate more value every turn.
Altar of the Brood is a bit too slow for my taste and also risky against any decks which can abuse their graveyard.
Vitalize is a card that I've got on the radar. I'm currently running To Arms! and Benefactor's Draught because they also draw a card, but running Vitalize as well might be worth it. Those cards do put in a lot of work, especially when there's Cryptolith Rite or something like that on the field... Will think about it.
And for some reason I've never considered running Mycoloth, but it sounds like a good addition. I'll certainly test that.
Yes, Glare of Subdual is amazing here. Tapping down blockers or scary attackers while also producing tokens is just powerful. This card has singlehandedly turned around a lot of games which would otherwise have been lost.
here's my current Emmara decklist - a token go wide deck, which can really get out of hand quickly to swarm the board, recover very fast from boardwipes and is tons of fun to play.
1x Birchlore Rangers
1x Loam Dryad
1x Saruli Caretaker
1x Jaspera Sentinel
1x Birds of Paradise
1x Avacyn's Pilgrim
2x Beacon Hawk
2x Selfless Spirit
2x Patrol Signaler
2x Selesnya Evangel
2x Seeker of Skybreak
3x Reclamation Sage
3x Stonybrook Schoolmaster
3x Rishkar, Peema Renegade
3x Mirror Entity
3x Mentor of the Meek
3x Champion of Lambholt
4x Citanul Hierophants
4x Skyshroud Poacher
4x Toski, Bearer of Secrets
4x Nullmage Shepherd
5x Deep Forest Hermit
5x Deranged Hermit
7x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
enchantments: 16
1x Legion's Landing
1x Nature's Chosen
1x Reconnaissance
1x Instill Energy
2x Cryptolith Rite
2x Song of Freyalise
2x Sylvan Library
2x Quest for Renewal
3x Aura Shards
3x Beastmaster Ascension
3x Growing Rites of Itlimoc
4x Anointed Procession
4x Parallel Lives
4x Glare of Subdual
5x Cathars' Crusade
5x Divine Visitation
0x Paradise Mantle
1x Skullclamp
1x Springleaf Drum
1x Sol Ring
2x Throne of the God-Pharaoh
2x Smuggler's Copter
2x Idol of Oblivion
3x Thousand-Year Elixer
planeswalkers: 1
4x Huatli, Radiant Champion
instants: 8
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Swords to Plowshares
2x Eladamri's Call
2x To Arms!
2x Benefactor's Draught
2x Heroic Intervention
3x Flawless Maneuver
3x Chord of Calling
sorcery: 9
1x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Steelshaper's Gift
2x Open the Armory
3x Harvest Season
5x Shamanic Revelation
5x March of Souls
6x Collective Unconscious
6x Camaraderie
7x Hour of Reckoning
lands: 33
1x Canopy Vista
1x Windswept Heath
1x Emeria's Call
1x Turntimber Symbiosis
1x Branchloft Pathway
1x Sunpetal Grove
1x Wirewood Lodge
1x Fortified Village
9x Plains
10x Forest
1x Sungrass Prairie
1x Command Tower
1x Gavony Township
1x Holdout Settlement
1x Khalni Garden
1x Survivors' Encampment
2x Emmara, Soul of the Accord
The deck is focused around tapping and untapping Emmara. We have 20 ways to tap Emmara without risking her in an attack (2 of these are one-of convoke spells) and 10 ways to untap her (2 of them are one-of instants). There are also plenty of tutors to find them.
The best ramp cards of the deck are the likes of Birchlore Rangers or Jaspera Sentinel which enable very fast starts, producing the first tokens already at turn 2. Nature's Chosen is by far the best card in the deck, enabling Emmara to produce 4 or 5 soldier tokens every round for the investment of just 1 mana.
We also run the most powerful draw spells for a Selesnya token deck so we never run out of gas and can recover quickly after board wipes.
Any comments are appreciated. I'm currently looking two make room for Kabira Takedown and Elvish Scout, but can't really find a place to cut. Which cards would be best to cut here?
so I've been brewing this Thrasios Toggo list for the last weeks and while it's maybe not the strongest cEDH deck, it certainly is a lot of fun. Toggo is surprisingly good at establishing board control with his rocks. From mana dorks to small wincon creatures like Hermit Druid to Tymna to even Thassa's Oracle (when there are no other blue cards around), this guy can handle a lot of threats. And throwing rocks is fun!
Here's my current list:
1 Elvish Mystic
1 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Elvish Reclaimer
1 Gilded Drake
1 Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy
1 Goblin Engineer
1 Lotus Cobra
1 Dockside Extortionist
1 Ramunap Excavator
1 Eternal Witness
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Emry, Lurker of the Loch
1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
1 Hullbreacher
1 Mina and Denn, Wildborn
1 Urza, Lord High Artificer
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Exploration
1 Mystic Remora
1 Sylvan Library
1 Trade Routes
1 Rhystic Study
1 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Arcane Signet
1 Talisman of Creativity
1 Talisman of Curiosity
1 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Basalt Monolith
1 Inspiring Statuary
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Finale of Devastation
1 Life from the Loam
1 Nature's Lore
1 Three Visits
1 Transmute Artifact
1 Bala Ged Recovery // Bala Ged Sanctuary
1 Temporal Manipulation
1 Time Warp
1 Walk the Aeons
1 Sea Gate Restoration // Sea Gate, Reborn
1 Nature's Claim
1 Crop Rotation
1 Read the Runes
1 Pongify
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Flusterstorm
1 Swan Song
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Whir of Invention
1 Force of Negation
1 Deflecting Swat
1 Fierce Guardianship
1 Intuition
1 Force of Will
1 Wrenn and Six
1 Dack Fayden
1 Oko, Thief of Crowns
1 Taiga
1 Strip Mine
1 Prismatic Vista
1 Mana Confluence
1 Tropical Island
1 Dust Bowl
1 Volcanic Island
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Inventors' Fair
1 Exotic Orchard
1 Polluted Delta
1 Hinterland Harbor
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Snow-Covered Forest
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Island
1 Ketria Triome
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Waterlogged Grove
1 Mystic Sanctuary
1 Field of the Dead
1 Breeding Pool
1 Command Tower
1 Stomping Ground
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Flooded Strand
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Windswept Heath
1 Toggo, Goblin Weaponsmith
1 Thrasios, Triton Hero
The deck aims to push the game into the mid / late game, establish a superior board with all the value that Toggo and Thrasios create and then try to turn that into a win. Creature density is quite high to support the rocks. The main wincons are either infinite turns or infinite mana + Thrasios. Before we get to infinite turns, those extra turn spells are of course great to put out extra lands, get more plainswalker activations, throw more rocks, etc
There are a few combos for infinite turns:
1) Mystic Sanctuary + bounce (Trade Routes or Mina and Denn) + any extra turn spell
2) Mystic Sanctuary + sac outlet (Dust Bowl, Elvish Reclaimer or Strip Mine + Extra land drop) + Crucible or Excavator + any extra turn spell
3) Mystic Sanctuary + sac outlet + Wrenn and Six or Life from the Loam + any extra turn spell
4) Walk the Aeons + Crucible or Excavator or Life from the Loam + 2 extra land drops (Azusa or Exploration + Mina and Denn)
5) Walk the Aeons + Crucible or Excavator + 1 extra land drop + Mystic Sanctuary
6) Wrenn and Six emblem + Life from the Loam or Wrenn and Six + any extra turn spell
7) Crucible or Excavator + bounce (Mina and Denn or Trade Routes) + Bala Ged Recovery + any extra turn spell
The infinite mana combos are Basalt Monolith and either Rings of Brighthearth or Kinnan. Rings are also great even without the Basalt Monolith to copy fetchlands, Strip Mine activations, plainswalker abilities or even just rock throws.
Hope you like the deck, any help or comment is appreciated.
It's been a while, didn't have much time due to work but I possibly discovered a neat interaction the other day:
Cards used are Alena, Kessig Trapper, Heroes' Bane, False Dawn, Workhorse, Wine of Blood and Iron, Shapesharer and something to turn all creatures into Shapeshifters.
With False Dawn, Alena can essentially tap for any colour. So we tap Alena for X mana, where X is Heroes' Bane's power. Normally we could use 4*X mana to get the power of Heroes' Bane from X to 2^X. Now we instead use 2GG to add X +1/+1 counters, then switch Heroes' Bane into Workhorse for 2U. Now we can remove 4 of the +1/+1 counters to double the power with Wine of Blood and Iron.
So essentially with 2 Doubling Seasons out, we can pump Heroes' Bane from X to 2^X for the cost of GGUU. Since tapping Alena adds X mana, would every tap of an Alena add one layer?
Thanks! In that case what would happen if the first blue spell is cast and there are 3^^^^^99 scepter untaps and 3^^^^^99 scepter activations for the first untap and so on? Would that add more up arrows?
That was the version with Outnumber if I interpret it correctly?
With Justice Strike the number of tokens should scale better:
If there were 100 creatures and a hydra with power 2^10000, that would be 2^10000*3^100 tokens ( = 2^10150). With 50 Naban and 50 Intruder Alarm, there would be 250 untap triggers for every creature. All creatures get turned into Nyxbloom Ancient and one into Alena. Alena taps for about 3^2^10150 mana. One activation costs approximately just R, because all tokens get turned into Kurkesh to copy the ability so Hydra grows to about 2^3^2^10150. Next Alena grows it to about 2^2^3^2^10150 and so on for each of the 2^10150 tokens, for every untap trigger. That would add another two or three(?) up arrows unless I'm wrong?
And of course it turned out that Master Biomancer, Hamletback Goliath, Hungering Hydra, Gleam of Authority are useless. How big the Hydra is at the beginning is almost irrelevant.
For example with my list, what would happen with the first use of Unbender Tine? Let's assume for simplicity's sake that there are 100 creatures which can be freely transformed into combo pieces by Shapesharer while there's still at least one of every combo piece available as Shapesharer target. And enough mana to do that (that should be easy because Heroes' Bane always grows much faster than the number of creatures, so mana for Shapesharer or Kurkesh isn't limiting) and Scepter has only Outnumber imprinted, nothing else.
Tap Unbender Tine to untap Isochron Scepter. Turn 100 creatures into Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient for 100 untaps. Let the first untap resolve, activate Scepter, copy the activation 100 times, then change every creature into Precursor Golem. Let the first activation resolve, get 100 Golem triggers.
Let the first trigger resolve, get 100 copies of Outnumber (which can all be redirected to Saber Ants). Change 99 creatures into Fiery Emancipation, let the first Outnumber resolve, then with the Saber Ants trigger on the stack, change 100 creatures into Doubling Season. We should then get 100 * 3^99 * 2^100 tokens.
Let the second Outnumber resolve, get 3^(100 * 3^99 * 2^100 -1) * 2^(100 * 3^99 * 2^100) * (100 * 3^99 * 2^100) tokens. This is more than 3^(3^99).
The next Outnumber should then create more than 3^3^3^99 tokens.
In total, we get some more than 3^^99 tokens from the second Golem trigger, is that correct?
And the third Golem trigger would turn that into 3^^^99, the 4th into 3^^^^99 and so forth? Or am I calculating this wrong?
And what would the second activation of Isochron Scepter do? That's where I totally get lost in the maths (if that didn't happen before O.o). And after the 100 activations are done, what would the second untap do when Googols of Googols of Googols of Kurkeshs produce an absolutely enormous number of activations?
In any case, it seems like Outnumber isn't significantly better than Lightning Bolt in the scenario - the damage pretty much only depends on the number of Fiery Emancipations?
The only way to make a difference would be to switch Outnumber for Justice Strike because Heroes' Bane is always much, much more powerful than the number of creatures. That would exclude any lifelink effects, so cut Yarok and Rush of Vitality for Naban, Dean of Iteration and Elspeth, Knight-Errant (emblem for indestructible). Outnumber can be cut since it's actually useless.
The new combo would then be: Unbender Tine -> Isochron Scepter -> Justice Strike on the Heroes' Bane, enchanted with Druid's Call and Gleam of Authority, turn it into Hungering Hydra and everything else into Fiery Emancipation before Justice Strike resolves. Let Strike resolve, turn it into Master Biomancer before Druid's Call trigger resolves. Turn all creatures into Doubling Season. The tokens get their counters and trigger Hamletback Goliath, which grows the creature enchanted with Gleam of Authority again. Turn it into Heroes' Bane again, let the untap trigger from Intruder Alarm resolve. Change everything except Heroe's Bane into Nyxbloom Ancient and one creature into Alena, Kessig Trapper. Tap it, use the mana to grow Heroes' Bane, repeat until every creature is tapped, let the next Justice Strike resolve.
What would happen here?
For the Gingerbread Cabin, Nature's Revolt would create a lot more Food tokens with Dual Nature and Doubling Season and Naban, Dean of Iteration.